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Heraldry
What is the meaning of heraldry Meaning in the period and sometimes in the Society as well is: The business of herald. Everything they do is heraldry. In the common usage, heraldry means either a generic system of identification, or a very specific one that was developed in Europe at 1100. It has gone through a lot phases in its history from the early stages of combat heraldry to the degenerate heraldry of the 17th and 18th centuries, and back to the revival heraldry seen in some places today. Here we consider the meaning to be the last one of the above. A nicely defining idea of this system is that a heraldic design is such an identifying mark, that can be explained in the language of blazon. From this depiction a person knowing this heraldic system even at superficial level can draw an image (called Emblazon) that is essentially the same picture than the original one and readily identifiable as such. Fulfilling this demand does not mean that the design is good heraldry, that requires a bit more, but it can be considered one definition of a heraldic design. The heraldic systems are also rule systems of identification. In other words, the heraldic design marks a body, be that a brave knight or a most solemn fraternity of trade or arms companions. The West-European heraldic system, the heraldry we know from Spain to Scandinavia, was also a system for battlefield recognition, which contributed to a lot of characteristics of the heraldry as the form followed a function. This is to say that the heraldic designs of this system aim for instant recognition of their bearer in the most trying and stressful conditions imaginable. On the noisy, sometimes dark or smoky battlefield where there are people that you are friendly with and then these others with whom you have a mutual understanding of the fact that, given a chance, first one who is able, will kill, maim or in any other available fashion incapacitate the other one. Now before we go on, let's talk a bit about studying heraldry. Most of us have studied heralry mainly from books and the internet. There are numerous sources where one can study the European heraldic system and this section of the handbook by no means aims to be even a comprehensive primer, rather an adequate introduction. Thus, perhaps it is best to discuss those common sources a bit before going any further. There exist numerous books and innumerable websites which seek to describe the heraldry comprehensively. Unfortunately this broad and proud aim is often their very shortcoming. You should note that most of the literature and practically all of the websites discuss particularily English or British heraldic tradition, and what's more, most of them present the modern English practice as the one and only heraldry. As a fairly large portion of the heraldic practices are universal, this is not a great drawback. Mostly it means that it introduces such complexity that simply wasn't there at the era our Society is interested in. Unfortunately it also gives such absolutes which do not hold for our scope. That being said, heraldry books are almost always fun and nice to have around and even the poor books are better than none, just so that as a herald you should know about this characteristic of theirs. Heraldic charges and charges used in heraldry To keep things working in the heraldic system, the presentation of the design needs to be consistent. This means that the shapes are fairly uniform and clearly recognizable. It also means that people could not and most certainly should not use just about anything in their armorial (another word for heraldic) designs. Before discussing the charges, let's consider the tinctures (herald speek for colour, as the latter is reserved for other use, please see below.) The colours are black, red, blue, green and purple and then there are metals which are silver/white and gold/yellow. In addition to these main tinctures, there exist furs which are treated fields and the so called proper, which refers to the natural colour of the charge (or in case of some charges works as a shorthand for a set of commonly agreed tinctures. For instance, a proper sword would have a silvery blade and a golden hilt and handle.) The tinctures add recognizability to the design as one does not have to guess what shade of green that marmot on the other guy's shield is, as Rick the Buddy would have a spring green and Nick the Villain a forest green one, green is green. The recognizability by tinctures is further enhanced by the rule of tincture, which states that one should only place charges of colour on metal fields and vice versa (which happens to create a very nice contrast) and further suggests that one keeps from hogging and only uses one of each ( colour and metal ) on one design, unless there absolutely needs to be yet another. As a side note, by this writer's experience the rule of tincture was largely ignored in the eastern Europe and to a degree even in Germany (as a number of German arms seems to have had red next to black) and there also exists a number of other acceptable exceptions, so this is more a rule of thumb, but I hope that the intention of the rule comes accross. As in the onset there was the clear function, besides the fields of tinctures geometric designs were most popular, so popular that in the West-European system they're considered a group of their own, the ordinaries. The Fess, pale, bend, chevron, chief and base clear lines that can be drawn with ruler. standard size is about a third of the field (One could say shield, but field is better as there are so many wonderful ways to use a good design besides the basic protective appliance). These are also such that the field can be divided along them and such a divided field makes a very nice design of its own. The border line or the last mentioned division line can be drawn in one of the decorative styles set in the system. Such lines include the classic embattled (looks like battlements) and wavy and flame line treatments but there are many more of these to pick from. Besides the ordinaries there are the other charges more and less unordinary (little humor there, ha ha. yes yes pretty lame and will be edited out in the later stage) The inanimate objects such as weapons and tools and the animate objects animals and fantastic creatures. Of the animals it is good point to note that they need to be heraldic animals, which means that they are very, very recognizable usually by their distinctive style. There are a number of set positions the animals in general can appear in and if a creature is used, their position is part of the design. The all time favourite position for animals seems to be the one known as rampant (needs a commonlyh known example) and the other one is the passsant (e.g. the lions in the English arms), but more can be found and there are own sets for birds and fishes. Blazon The subset of English being particular to the heraldry is blazon, which can and indeed does capture the full content of heraldic design. The Blazon has a set of rules and some particular vocabulary that is used in depicting the designs. This introduction should give you some idea of what these rules are and how the system actually works. First the basics: The blazon starts off from the top right hand corner of the shield as seen by the person bearing it. From a viewers point of view, it begins from the top left corner and first thing to describe is the colour of the field - or if the field is divided, that division. The blazon uses a set of specialist terms for the tinctures. Lets cover those first, as they are pretty fundamental to the system: *'Sable', for black *'Gules', for red *'Azure', for blue *'Vert', for green *'Purpure', for purple *'Argent', for silver *'Or', for gold Now that we have our tinctures set, we can try our hand at blazoning a simple design. A classic upright, roaring golden lion on red field. We start with the field Gules And follow it with the primary charge, the lion, also stating its posture Gules, a lion rampant and finally the tincture of a lion is stated. In blazon a tincture applies to every element that precedes it Gules, a lion rampant Or If there would have been a secondary charge, for instance a base (one of the ordinaries, the bottom third of the field), the blazon would have read Gules, a lion rampant and a base Or which would have stated that indeed all the charges were golden. Individuality of arms As stated above the heraldic system is a system of identification. In order for a heraldic design to have identifying powers to it, it needs to be unique or distinctly different to be instantly recognizable from all other somewhat similar designs. Then again, the number of unique and especially unique and ''desirable designs is limited and some are more preferable than the others. Therefore, there are rules on what is a 'distinct change', that will make a design acceptable and how this is to be understood. In Society usage the definition of adequate uniqueness is such that the two arms do not make a claim of blood relation between the bearers. This can be achieved in a number of ways fully described in the rules. Common ones are two distinct changes, but in simple arms the full change of the charges attitude may suffice. Hence no one in this system may unconditionally claim a lion, or even a lion in a given pose. What one may claim is lion in a given pose, tincture and context. Say a golden rampant lion on black (a legit claim) but if someone else wants to use a golden sleeping lion on black, or a golden rampant lion on red they are free to do so and if a third person came along and he too wanted to have a golden rampant lion on red, he could double it for two lions or make some other changes to the design. Armorial artefacts, arms and badges and what is a device Again a nice collection of eldrich terms, but such that a herald does well to know. In order to really understand these we need to discuss a bit about the Society's very own heraldic definitions as well as the ever looming English system. Armorial things are things that are heraldic. They can take many forms or get used in various contexts such as Coat of Arms, Crest, Badge, Flag, Banner, Pennon or a seal. In the Society's heraldic bureaucracy we also use terms device and badge and depending on context things overlapping each other may refer to a same thing or a completely different things. But opening this knotwork of terminology can be started at one point so lets get to it and unravel the whole sordid affair. '''Coat of Arms', or Arms for short is the basic thing and in generic terms that is a Device. This is a field of tincture(s) likely sprinkled with one or more heraldic charges and in Society context that is all of the coat of arms there is. This is also a device, though in the Society heraldic bureaucratic sense the Device is the first (and often only) coat of arms that a person registers with the Society College of Arms. The most usual way to display a Coat of Arms is on a shield - that can actually take more shapes than just the most popular gothic shield (you know the one that looks like the ironing iron) - but as the name suggests an equally common way to display this would be on a coat where the cloth is the tincture of the field and the charges are displayed in maximum size. The very same design can be worked to a rectangular banner or a fluting pennon. Crest, is either a part of the full coat of arms, often called achievement or a quaint romantic way of referring to a coat of arms. In heraldic context it means the first mentioned and then it means a three dimensional object stuck on top of a good gentle's helmet that is displayed as fieldless (as it is a three dimensional object and not a picture painted on shield). The crest in the general heraldic practice is often a unique design, but in period at least as popular as design a further part was repeating the main charge of the shield as the crest or use a pair of horns or wings in the tinctures the bearer's coat of arms. In most heraldic jurisdiction the crest is registered as part of coat of arms, but in the Society only the basic shield is used and if one wants a unique design as a crest he should register one separately as a badge (the term understood as the Society bureaucratic one, please have look below) Badge, in heraldric usage is a particularily English vice when it is understood in its generic meaning as a fieldless design that is used besides the Coat of Arms. The most often quoted meaning of the badge as opposed to a device is that where the device says I am, the badge says I belong to. So, it is a person's mark. The badges have been used for example in the coats of arms of a great man's archery continget toppin the livery colours as well as in communication and simply marking one's belongings. In the Society bureaucratic sense (at the time of writing a person can register 4 armorial artifacts with the Society's College of Arms) the badge means the other three pictures that are registered after the one that was dubbed device. However it pays to note that these pictures are not necessarily badges in the heraldic sense. They can be, for example, coat of arms for an alternate persona or a household, such as a merchant house or a free company. Also, if one would like to have a separate flag, such as a naval ensign for one's merchant house, it would also be registered as a badge. Flag and Banner are forms of, well, a flag. These can be either the basic device emblazoned in rectangular shape and worked out of cloth, or a separate design altogether. In stricter sense of the terminology a flag is flown on a pole horizontally, whereas a banner is attached to a bar from its top edge. A Pennon, can either mean a differently shaped flag showing an elongated version of the coat of arms itself, or a very particular kind of an English design, where the contents of a Coat of Arms (including crest, badge and motto) are paired with a national design and rearranged on a pennon shape. This is a very attractive, flamboyant and otherwise commendable form of heraldic display, but takes some time and effort to design. Finally one can't avoid mentioning seals when discussing the heraldic artifacts. Seals actually predate the heraldry by a very long time and some of the iconic heraldic designs are derived from them. For example the fleur-de-lis, as seen on the French and English national arms, originates from Klodovig's personal seal. In general seals were not heraldic designs as such, but since the advent of the heraldic system they have started to be shown more prominently. One of the most popular formats was to depict a knight and the arms on that knight's shield, coat and possibly on the cloth of his mount. Later the fashions dropped pretty much everything but the shield from the seal.